THE WRITE ANGLE

There are Trappist monks, who take vows of silence, who have probably said more in recent years than Marcus Allen.

He spoke once during a “Monday Night Football” telecast in 1992 about his acrimonious dealings with his former Raider boss, Al Davis, then clammed up.

Two years ago, after all legal maneuvers to escape had failed, he honored a subpoena and answered questions about his relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson. And then those answers were never used.

Pinning down Marcus Allen has been as difficult as trying to tackle him, but standing on a far-away practice field, where he is a backup running back for the Kansas City Chiefs beginning his 16th season in the NFL, there might be no shutting him up.

He has a message to deliver, he insists, and beginning Sept. 8, a $24.95 book to sell.

“Here’s what I’m trying to do,” says Allen, who holds the NFL record for rushing touchdowns with 112. “I’m trying to go from success to significance.”

That’s great, and there’s probably a humanitarian award to be won at some point, but what about the dirt?

Skip the initial “when I was growing up as a kid” 131 pages of “Marcus” to find out what he really thinks about Al Davis, and then jump to page 277 for the 1995 question that seemingly has never gone away.

“Did you have an affair with Nicole?” Los Angeles prosecutor Chris Darden asked Allen during a deposition in a Kansas City hotel room.

There will be no reason to yell, “Stop the presses!”

In Allen’s written words, “Stunned by the question, I said, ‘No, I didn’t.’ ”

It’s what he’s also saying now, backed against a wall outside the Chiefs’ training camp locker room at the University of Wisconsin in River Falls. “I deny there was ever a relationship,” he says. “There was just nothing there.”

Allen, although talking and writing now, remains just as elusive. Although he discusses his relationship with O.J. Simpson and his reaction to hearing of Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder, he provides no opinion of guilt or innocence. The good soldier to the very end.

“And what did I think?” he writes. “I’d long since made up my mind that I would refuse to judge. And to this day there is but one certainty I can share: I am and forever will be tortured by the loss of two people who were my friends; one murdered, one now faced to live a lifetime being blamed for the tragedy.”

He says he learned of Nicole’s murder while playing golf on vacation in the Cayman Islands, and heeded the advice of friends to remain there and avoid the media crush surrounding Simpson, his good friend.

“When I finally reached O.J. at his home,” writes Allen, “the anguish in his voice was like nothing I’d ever heard. ‘Oh, my God,’ he kept saying over and over. ‘Oh, my God. . . . Oh, my God.”

Allen was “convinced that [Simpson] had killed himself,” after hearing Robert Kardashian read Simpson’s letter on TV, which included a reference to Allen and Allen’s wife, Kathryn. And hours later, while watching Simpson and A.C. Cowlings driving down the highway in the white Bronco, he repeatedly tried to call Simpson and Cowlings on their cell phones.

When he saw Cowlings pull into Simpson’s driveway at his Brentwood home, Allen says he called again.

“I dialed the number of O.J.’s home and someone identifying himself as a police officer answered,” Allen writes. “O.J. was fine, he said, but he couldn’t come to the phone. . . . I sat on the edge of the bed and wept uncontrollably.”

In recounting a conversation with his wife a short time later, he writes, “You know, if we had gone home, I probably would have been in that Bronco with them.”

Allen, who had been inspired by Simpson to attend USC and who since had spent many a social hour with him, visited Simpson once in jail early on. But he says that was the last time he saw Simpson in person, and while offering no further clue to his present-day relationship with Simpson, he says he no longer remains friendly with Cowlings because of the strain brought on by the situation.

Allen, who fought successfully to avoid giving testimony in the criminal trial, writes that he was at a Super Bowl function when defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. made his opening statement and pointed out that Simpson was not a mean, jealous person because Simpson had allowed Allen to use his home to get married shortly after having an affair with Nicole.

Allen says in his book, “The following day, a man I can only describe as a skinhead walked up behind me, took a swing at me and asked, ‘How was she?’ ”

For those who feel cheated and want to know more about Allen, there is this promise from Davis made a few months ago: “I will tell you some time the real story about Marcus Allen and Nicole and O.J.”

But apparently not today.

Davis did not respond to an invitation to reflect on his relationship with Allen and Allen’s predictable viewpoint of their disagreements in his book. The man who has not spoken at length in years has apparently remained quiet because there has been nothing new to offer.

“There is not as much venom as I think people would anticipate,” Allen says, in stopping a rush to the bookstores. But it will, he says, “certainly have Davis overreacting, but then that’s typical.”

Davis to this day spits out Allen’s name when the occasion arises to use it, but like Allen in his book, neither has ever pinpointed the specific reason for their mutual contempt.

“Despite all the theories and second-hand rumors that I heard, I could neither understand nor determine for certain why Al Davis had declared war against me,” says Allen. “It made no sense.”

But war it was.

Allen, who essentially spent four years on the bench during the prime of his career at Davis’ alleged orders, writes that he had to be restrained by teammates and coaches from physically going after Davis in the team’s locker room after a comeback victory over the New York Giants in which he had not played a down.

The Raiders had fallen behind the Giants, says Ronnie Lott in the book, and although Allen had not participated, he had ripped into his teammates at halftime.

“This isn’t Raiders’ football,” Lott remembers Allen screaming, and in the second half the Raiders came roaring back to win, but with Allen still on the bench.

“Inside the locker room, I made my way through the celebration that had broken out,” Lott says, “and walked in the direction of his locker. I found him sitting there alone, tears streaming down his face.”

A few minutes later, Allen writes, he went looking for Davis. “I’m going to kick his . . . ,” Allen says, and that would have been a whole lot more interesting than most Raider games in those days.

Allen, the 12th-leading rusher in NFL history at the time he was still employed by Davis, was dropped to fourth at times on the Raiders’ depth chart, behind such runners as Nick Bell, Vance Mueller, Eric Dickerson and Roger Craig.

“I was No. 4 behind a guy who was No. 3, who had no name,” Allen jokes.

Like a martyr’s, Allen’s reputation appeared to take on holy proportions around the NFL with players and coaches. He came off as the sympathetic figure to Davis’ devil, the classy athlete accepting his unjust fate without so much as a whimper.

Former Raider teammate Matt Millen, now a TV broadcaster, remains as perplexed as anyone at how the whole thing got started.

“We will never figure that [relationship] out,” he said. “Both Al and Marcus are very strong personalities and have healthy egos. Marcus will always have his side, and not having read the book, he will say he did nothing to deserve what happened, and Al Davis’ side will be he did nothing to Marcus.

“It’s just one of those things: ‘I didn’t kiss her, she kissed me.’ It happened, both leaned forward, but who did it?”

Although reluctant to be interviewed in recent years, Allen has always remained polite and available to fans who have wanted his autograph. In retrospect, maybe he is the man who should always be dressed in all white.

If there is another side to the story, it has been lost in Davis’ blanket indictment against anyone who deviates from the Raider way. And if Davis had good reason to discipline Allen, it was never expressed. The mystery remains, the protagonist and antagonist never clearly defined.

After filing suit against the Raiders and the NFL to win his release, Allen signed with Kansas City and added 3,193 yards to his resume. The martyr could still play, and Allen’s performance coupled with a Raider team that could not win consistently has provided ammunition for present-day Davis-haters.

Two years ago, Allen topped the 10,000-yard mark for rushing and 5,000-yard mark for receiving, scored a touchdown and rushed for 124 yards in a 29-23 victory over the Raiders. The martyr was now the bully.

“In my mind’s eye, I could see Al Davis boiling,” Allen writes.

For a long time, Allen says in his book, “I hated him, not only for what he had done to me, but for the way he treated virtually everyone in the Raiders’ organization. During my first couple of years with Kansas City, I literally dreamed of going into Los Angeles and having great games and then looking up at him in his owner’s suite and shooting him the finger.”

Allen, expected to retire at season’s end, must still play Davis’ Raiders twice this year, although in a departure from recent years, he will be working behind Greg Hill. Watching him sit on the bench just might be Al Davis’ final taste of revenge.

” . . . I find the whole rule-by-fear mentality that he used to drive the Raiders really sad,” writes Allen. “Somewhere along the way, Davis lost track of where the man ends and myth begins. I feel sorry for the guy.

” . . . it was not unusual for [Davis] to make a stop in the equipment room, take a fresh towel from one of the stacks, and then, without so much as a word, ceremoniously drop it at his feet. It was a signal for one of the ball boys to shine his shoes.”

Allen, while always appearing to be the understanding team player, writes that he resented the acquisition of Bo Jackson because, “truthfully, I regarded Bo’s presence as just another way Davis had discovered to slap me in the face.”

It is his autobiography, and so his story is obviously slanted his way. But there are some revealing references to Allen’s disdain for criticism, and the grudges he has harbored--against NBC’s Jim Gray and ESPN’s Roy Firestone, for example--sometimes making him appear Al Davis-like.

“There were times when things were very tough,” Allen says.

He says he walked out of a Raider practice in 1992, too disgusted to continue, but received helpful advice from former Raider assistant Terry Robiskie before calling coach Art Shell to apologize. Allen quotes Shell as telling him, “Mr. Davis won’t let you go.”

He says the Packers called, inquiring about a trade, but he heard Davis had replied, “I’m never trading the [SOB].”

His biggest regret today, says Allen, is not in dealing with Davis, as he believes Muhammad Ali, his hero, would have. He says Ali stands alone because he was willing to risk everything after refusing to be inducted into the military.

“There is a fear of retribution which prevents us from doing a lot of things because, when people control you economically, they control you,” Allen says. “That’s what happened to me with Al. I empathize with the people who work with the Raiders; they are sort of shackled like I was.

“I feel sort of incomplete when measured to people like Ali. Who today would sacrifice everything, the fame, the money, everything for what they believe in? You would be hard-pressed to find anyone, and I’m probably one of those people who would find it hard to do. I’m guilty. I haven’t done it right, but I’m evolving, and I want to make an impact now.”

Reminded that he has had his chance, but has chosen for much of his career to play in silence, he says, “I was young then.

“And do you consider what I have done in football to be significant? No, of course not, there is so much more. I hope this book is insightful, and even inspirational.”

Stuck between the good stuff about Al Davis and Nicole Brown Simpson, he offers his thoughts on today’s young professional football players, who have no respect for history, and offers a peek into the business of football, including the deaths of teammates Mike Wise and Lyle Alzado.

“Looking back on it all,” Allen says, “I wish the things that occurred between Al Davis and me had never happened. But in retrospect, it was an experience that taught me a great deal about myself and the resiliency of the human spirit; about the ability to overcome and continue moving ahead. In that regard, I suppose I owe Al Davis a debt of gratitude.”